Series: Like Us Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1182(@200wpm)___ 946(@250wpm)___ 788(@300wpm)
“My dad…” Audrey is still holding the cardboard torso. “My dad is decapitated.”
“Cardboard Dad,” Kinney says. “And he’s like seventy years older than this now.” She gestures to the cardboard face of a young twentysomething Uncle Connor. “The young version of him is disturbing. This might be a Christmas miracle for my eyes.”
“I’m never going to live this down,” Audrey panics. “My brothers are going to tease me endlessly.”
Kinney sighs. “I bet there’s tape and superglue in the house. If we have to fix him, we can, but I still think we should throw him away.”
“We can’t be the ones to ruin a family tradition. Everyone already treats us like we’re babies.” Kinney’s sixteen and Audrey turns sixteen next month, but for me, they’ve jumped from preteens to teenagers in the snap of a finger.
“I would rather hide and seek a new makeup palette than hide and seek a piece of dusty old cardboard,” Kinney says. “Maybe that should be our next ritual.”
Audrey catches my gaze from around the Land Rover. “Luna?”
Kinney rotates, seeing me. “Why are you creeping around here?”
Was I creeping? I was just passing on by! “I’m on my way…somewhere.” Saying the full truth about Charlie will spark a million questions that I’m not exactly prepared to answer.
Kinney raises her brows. “Makes total sense.” Got to hand it to her, she’s perfected our dad’s sarcasm, but the hostility in her green eyes is subdued. “You are okay though?”
“Yep.” I nod and stuff my hands in my black puffer jacket.
“Okay.” She looks me over, taking this as truth. It is one.
“Luna, please don’t tell anyone,” Audrey pleads with big glassy blue eyes.
“She won’t spill,” Kinney says confidently. “She’s great at keeping secrets.” It sounds like a frosty dig, like I haven’t shared enough with her. I haven’t been forthcoming and I’m not being extra wide-open now.
A pit lowers in my stomach. “Your secret is safe with me,” I tell Audrey. “Lips zipped.” I mime throwing the key behind my shoulder and I give her a double thumbs up.
Audrey blows out a breath of relief. “We owe you a million.”
“We owe her one,” Kinney amends. “Or we’ll be indebted forever.”
“One,” Audrey says. “We owe you one glorious favor, the biggest ever.”
“The tiniest favor,” Kinney deadpans.
“You owe me none,” I say. “It’s on the house. A sisterly act of cardboard kindness.”
“Thanks,” Kinney says with a side-eye that I think is a smile. She heaves the cardboard torso with Audrey and reaches down, grabbing the head.
“Let’s go through the side door,” Audrey says. “Less people will see us.”
I wish I could stay and watch them smuggle decapitated Cardboard Connor into the house, but I have a mission of my own.
Trekking down the side of the house, I slow my pace at the sound of voices, and I hug closer to the siding once I spot a metal ladder and plastic tub of garland. Winona is perched on a rung. Down below, Vada clutches a wreath with a velvet red ribbon.
“Without Ben around, it’s not the same, Nona,” Vada says quietly. “I don’t know what he was doing, but at least the T-Bags didn’t harass us this much at school.”
The T-Bags?
I press my back to the siding of the house. Becoming one with the building. Now I am totally creeping, but in my defense, spying is just a tool. One I can use to catch up on history I might’ve missed.
Vada continues, “The bikini pics of us that they taped in our lockers—they got a slap on the wrist for it, even after both our dads complained. The teachers aren’t going to do anything because Tate’s grandfather donated so much money to Dalton, they named the gym after him.”
Winona’s eyes look puffy like she’d been crying. “I don’t want to drag Xander into this.”
I freeze at my brother’s name.
“Tate literally followed you from Chem to Calc. If Xander even told him off once, Tate might leave you alone. The T-Bags suck up to him and basically kiss his ass, and Xander doesn’t even realize how cunty they are because everyone wants to be Xander’s best fucking friend, Nona.”
“Or they could start harassing Xander,” Winona says. “What if we open the floodgate to that?”
My pulse skips.
“His bodyguard walks the halls with him. Maybe yours should too.”
“And what about you, Vada?” Winona asks softly. “You don’t have a bodyguard.”
“Tate also isn’t stalking me from class to class. I think if they were as aggressive with me as they are with you, you’d already be tackling him during fourth period.”
Winona digs at her cuticles. “Sometimes it’s easier to pick a fight on behalf of someone else.” She stands on the metal rung. “Let’s just get through the rest of the school year without defaulting to Xander. He’s graduating anyway. We’ll have to figure out how to deal on our own.” She reaches for a wreath.